When an aircraft is reaching a destination point for an arrival at an airport, during this last flight phase, a missed approach may occur or the aircraft may be placed in a holding pattern based on clearance instructions. When these changes in flight plan occur, the pilot's attention or focus will often be directed to making, during the changes in the flight phase, determinations or decisions of the amount of fuel and corresponding flight time available to enable the aircraft to proceed, if needed too, to an alternate airport(s) safely with an appropriate amount of reserve fuel to spare. For example, an amount of fuel that is over and above the bingo fuel (i.e. enough fuel to arrive at the destination) is generally appropriate to be used safely to remain in a holding pattern and also to determine the appropriate and safe wait times, if needed, for flight conditions to improve or to change. Assuming there is extra fuel to burn, it is beneficial for a pilot to know the reason(s) for the hold and further how likely, if the hold is based on dynamic factors like the load (i.e. current queue of aircrafts) awaiting instructions by the air traffic control (ATC) and/or the slots available at the airport or at possible alternate airports. This results in the inability of the pilot to determine how much wait time is anticipated or required for landing at the airport of the alternate airport and to calculate an allotted time based on the amount of fuel to complete safely an eventual landing of the aircraft. For example, if there is only 15 minutes of hold fuel in the fuel tanks of the aircraft and the current queue at the airport is not expected to clear for at least 30 minutes, then the pilot may want to or is provided with a basis to make an immediate decision to elect to divert the aircraft to an alternate airport earlier which in turn increases the envelope of safety to consummate a safe landing operation.
It is desirable to provide methods and systems based on clearances that reduce the workload of the pilot and a flight dispatcher or controller to predict the timing required that may have an effect on instructed aircraft flight clearances to land, to periods of phase transitions from a holding pattern to a landing phase at the planned airport and to diversions of the aircraft to alternate airports. The present disclosure addresses at least this need.